What's up with the runners for Jesus or whatever? There are people who are doing some kind of marathon group pilgrimage except one out of the group is always running with a torch while a bunch of other people wait in the back of the slow truck that's pacing the runner for their turn. When someone gets tired another person jumps out of the truck and takes over. We saw barefooted people booking it, ladies with children bouncing in their slings and all kinds of amazing sights. Huge pictures of Mary or Jesus, of course, and the trucks all decorated. Sometimes there's more than one support vehicle with an alarm of some sort... We saw them beginning with our trip from Oaxaca but the numbers multiplied greatly as we made our way to Palenque. In fact, our whole trip was inundated with them. It causes some serious traffic jams on curvy two lane mountain roads.
So, not to broadcast just how clueless I am or how little work I put into looking up interesting sights to visit (I'm terribly chagrined Aunt Susan) but I had no idea how awesome the ruins at Palenque would be... I knew it was a bit of a tourist destination but when we finally got through the gate I was floored. I mean, holy cow. It was kind of the same feeling that I got when we visited Monte Alban right on the outskirts of Oaxaca. These are not just some crumbling stone places, they are intact and impressive! I was so impressed, in fact, that I was expecting much more when we got to Tikal because everybody's heard of Tikal, right? Must be awesome (and it is but Monte Alban and Palenque were pretty close seconds)... Anyway, more on Tikal later.
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| Hotty D showing off the interior of one of the monuments |
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| If you look closely you can see the guy working on restoring some of the stones |
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| Davis was particularly enamored with this arch |
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| Some of the motifs were actually still intact-- this is from late BC, early AD (sorry don't have a narrower range) |
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| This is me just realizing that the flower motifs weren't graffiti - happy. |
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| View of the ruin that we were walking around in. Most of the others are blocked off to the public. |
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| You can see where one slope has collapsed- there are tons of ruins that are still covered with grass etc. |
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| A water canal right beside the monument where D is in the tunnel |
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